-LRB- Tokyo , Japan -RRB- -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A Korean TV show about an alien who arrived on Earth 400 years ago and falls in love with a modern actress becomes one of the top series watched in Hebrew and Arabic . A Thai drama about a sharp-tongued woman who ends up being the maid of a Hong Kong mafia member strikes a chord with Spanish speakers .

Viki , a site where dramas , telenovelas , comedies and movies from the globe are translated by fans , gives a glimpse into the cross section of the world 's entertainment interests . It 's where its 22 million monthly users find TV shows that have never made it on their local television sets .

Described as the Hulu for the rest of the world , Viki has seen unexpected trends on the site : Turkish dramas perform well in Croatia . And Viki 's largest market for South Korean movies is Saudi Arabia . Southeast Asian viewers love `` Battlestar Galactica . '' Colombian telenovelas are a big hit in the Philippines .

`` Really good story lines are universal , '' said Viki 's CEO , Razmig Hovaghimian . `` There 's a reason why Colombian drama travels well to the Philippines . ''

`` When it travels , it travels with its nuances , its culture and its beauty . I think it creates a wave that 's really good for the content owner and it 's really good for the culture it comes with . ''

Crowdsourcing the world 's entertainment

The most popular shows on Viki -- many of which are Korean because of more flexible licensing agreements -- have been translated into nearly 70 languages including Cherokee and Greenlandic . The translations are crowdsourced by fans , who devote hours of their brainpower to make shows accessible in different languages .

Of nearly 200 language subtitles that appear on the site , about 50 of them are vulnerable , endangered or severely-endangered languages , says Hovaghimian .

The translators do not get paid .

It 's not about money says Nathalia Vela , one of Viki 's translators who lives in Colombia . `` I get to practice my languages , learn others and experience other cultures while working with people around the world .

`` I really enjoy so much subtitling and knowing that someone will be very happy because their favorite drama is subbed , so that is enough . ''

Vela estimates she has subtitled nearly 52 hours of content on Viki , usually between English and Spanish . Her favorite shows include `` Master 's Sun , '' a Korean drama about a woman who develops the ability to see ghosts after emerging from a three-year coma and `` Nodame Cantabile '' a Japanese drama about two students who meet at a demanding music college .

Each series has a designated channel manager like Vela , who is in charge of making sure that the community-submitted subtitles are accurate . After the quality check , the subtitles are locked .

Vela says she 's been inspired her to take classes in Japanese and French , and she 's also learning Korean on Rosetta Stone in Colombia .

`` The treasured thing we learned from Viki is that we saw a world where it is run not by money , but run by passion , '' said Viki 's co-founder Jiwon Moon .

Challenging the language barrier

The Singapore-based Viki , gets its name from the words video and wiki .

In 2008 , Moon , her husband , Changseong Ho , and Hovaghimian were business school students at Harvard and Stanford when they mulled over language learning challenges .

Hovaghimian , who is of Armenian descent , grew up in Egypt watching shows and movies he could n't understand .

`` I was spending Saturdays with my dad , watching Bollywood movies in Egypt and Oshin -LRB- morning drama series -RRB- from Japan . We would n't understand what they were saying , '' he said .

The business students wanted to build a way to subtitle content and get shows , film and content to travel beyond the native country .

`` There is unmet need for such content distribution , '' Moon said .

For years , U.S. movies and TV shows would air in other countries , but it was rare to see for example , a Japanese show in South Africa . And exposure to foreign shows and movies on U.S. stations or cinemas were also limited .

`` The diversity of content exposed to U.S. audience is very limited , '' said Ho , who is Korean . `` We believed Korean and foreign content may work -- even for mainstream Americans . ''

They sought to license content from other countries and use crowd sourced translations to help them spread into different languages .

`` Fan subbing has been around a long time , '' Hovaghimian said . `` The way it was done was not really legal or legit . ''

Viki struck its first content deal on a 2008 Korean show called `` Boys Over Flowers '' about four over-privileged boys at an elite school and a delivery girl who changes their lives .

`` That was the right show to start at the right time , '' Hovaghimian said . `` We got worldwide rights for it . And at that point , we knew it was working . ''

That show has now been translated into 69 languages on Viki such as Magyar , Esperanto and Hmong .

Viki had to convince broadcasters that fan-powered subtitles could be trusted and also that there were new foreign markets hungry for their content .

`` If we tell people that there are a million people in Egypt that watch a certain anime , they can take that and sell that to a broadcaster or they can try to sell DVDs there , '' Hovaghimian said .

They also realized that subtitling on Viki was happening so quickly that they were faster than pirates .

`` We realized there is a 72-hour window that if you do n't have translations on the content , typically pirate sites create translations , '' he said . `` If we get the translations within 72 hours , we 're getting SEO traffic so it was eating into piracy . ''

Moon and Ho left the company in 2012 to start another company , Vingle . Rakuten , a Japanese company , purchased Viki in 2013 .

What translates

Viki 's most watched show is a Korean drama called `` Playful Kiss , '' a show that bombed when it aired in South Korea in 2010 . The show was translated into 40 languages within a few hours of its release on Viki that year .

`` If we only licensed popular shows , that would 've been a miss , '' Hovaghimian said . '' ` Playful Kiss ' is our No. 1 show -- something that bombed in the home country . But we listen to the fans , so fans create the channels and they make the requests . ''

When a certain number of fans request the shows , Viki looks into acquiring rights .

The site allows users to watch the shows for free -- bearing in mind they have to endure the commercial breaks or pay a monthly fee to skip the ads . It also distributes the most popular shows with the fan-powered subtitles to Netflix and Hulu in Portuguese and Spanish .

Fans on the site can add real-time comments that pops up throughout the show . Hovagmian observed that shows have soared cross-culturally in unexpected places .

`` There 's something that 's resonating , '' he said .

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Singapore-based Viki provides TV series and films from around the world

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Fans subtitle the shows into their languages of choice through crowdsourcing

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Site started out as business school project and has won several tech awards